B&N Buys Out Pearson Stake in Nook Media for $28 Million
Barnes & Noble has reached an agreement to buy out textbook publisher Pearson’s stake in Nook Media for around $28 million dollars in cash and B&N stock. Pearson paid $89.5 million for their 5% stake in December 2012.
Today’s deal follows only a couple weeks after B&N announced a similar deal to buy out Microsoft’s stake in Nook Media for $120 million in cash and stock. Curiously, it looks like MS got the better deal; the tech company recovered 40% of its investment, while Pearson got about 32 cents on the dollar. To be more exact, the Pearson deal included $13.7 million in cash and 602,927 shares of B&N stock.
Shut of outside investors, B&N is now free to spin off Nook Media and let the ebook company sink or swim on its own. B&N had previously said that Nook Media would be spun off by August 2015. And while there is still time for someone to step forward and buy Nook Media, I don’t expect that to happen.
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